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Strength  of  the 
Mormon  Church 


AN  ADDRESS 

Delivered  by  invitation  at  the 
Banquet  of  the  Knife  and  Fork 
Club  at  Hotel  Muhlebach, 
Kansas  City,  Dec.  16th,  1920 
By  HEBER  L  GRANT 

President  of  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
of  Latter-dav  Saints 


Salt  Lake  City,  Utah 
BUREAU  OF  INFORMATION 

1  9  2  I 


of  Fatifr 


Of  TH«  CHCHCH  of  JESUS  CHSIST  o»  LATTBB-PAT  SAINTS. 

1.  Wx  believe  ia  God,  the  Eternal  Father,  aud  in  His 
Son,  Jesus  Christ,  and  in  the  Holy  Ghost. 

2.  WB  believe  that  men  will  be  punished  for  their  own 
Bins,  and  not  for  Adam's  transgression. 

8.  Wz  believe  that,  through  the  atonement  of  Christ, 
all  mankind  may  be  saved,  by  obedisnce  to  tha  laws  and 
ordinances  of  the  Gospel. 

4.  W»  believe  that  the  first  principles  and  ordinances 
of  the  Gospel  are:  First,  Faith  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ; 
second,  Repentance;  third,  Baptism  by  immersion  for  the 
remission  of  nins;  fourth,  Laying  on  of  Hands  for  the  Gift 
of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

5.  WE  believe  that  a  man  must  be  called  of  God,  by 
"prophecy,  and  by  the  laying  on  of  hands,"  by  those  who 
are  la  authority,  to  preach  the  gospel  and  administer  in  the 
ordinances  thereof.  »„*„;»«„ 

8.  WK  believe  in  the  same  organisation  that  existed  in 
the  primitive  church,  namely,  apostles,  prophets,  pastors, 
teachers,  evangelists,  etc. 

7.  -WK  believe  in  the  gift  of  tongues,  prophecy,  revela- 
tion, visions,  healing,  interpretation  of  tongues,  etc 

8.  WK  believe  tha  Bible  to  be  the  word  of  God,  as  far 
as  it  is  translated  correctly;  we  also  believe  the  Book  of 
Mormon  to  be  the  word  of  God. 

».  WB  fceMcve  all  that  God  has  revealed,  all  that  He 
does  now  reveal,  and  we  believe  that  He  will  yet  rejeai 
many  great  and  important  things  pertaining  to  the  Kingdom 

°  10. '  WK  believe  In  the  literal  gatb  erin  g  o  f  Israel  and  in 
the  restoration  of  the  Ten  Tribes.  That  Zion  will  be  boilt 
upon  this  continent.  That  Christ  will  reign  personally 
npon  tho  earth,  and  that  the  earth  will  be  renewed  and 

God  according  to  the  dictates  of  our  own  conscience,  and 
allow  all  men  the  same  privilege,  let  them  worship  how, 

12*  °w'ii  believe  in'being  subject  to  kings,  presidents, 
rulers  and  magistrates,  in  obeying,  honoring  and  sustaining 

tb(lS*W  WK  believe  in  being  honest,  troe.ohaate,  benevolent, 
virtuous,  and  in  doing  good  to  ALL  MKW;  indeed  we  may  sav 
that  we  follow  the  admonition  of  Paul,  'We  believe  all 
vhings,  we  hope  all  things,"  va  have  eadured  many  things, 
and  hope  to  be  able  to  endure  all  thiuga.  If  there  is  any- 
thing  virtuous,  lovely,  or  of  good  report  or  praiseworthy 
wa  seek  after  theae  things. 


Strength  of  the  "Mormon"  Church  \. 

An  Address  Delivered  by  Invitation  at  the  Banquet 

of  the  Knife  and  Fork  Club,  Kansas  City, 

Missouri,  December  16,  1920 


By  HEBER  J.^GRANT 

President  of  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
of  Latter-day  Saints 


Salt  Lake  City,  Utah 

BUREAU  OF  INFORMATION 

1921 


Strength  of  the  "Mormon"  Church 

Glimpses  From  Its  History,  With  Reference  to  Its 
Trials,  Travels,  Beliefs,  Achievements,  and  Plans  for 
the  Future,  as  Shown  in  an  Address  Delivered  by  In- 
vitation at  the  Banquet  of  the  Knife  and  Fork  Club  at 
Hotel  Muhlebach,  Kansas  City,  December  16,  1920,  by 
Heber  J.  •  Grant,  President  of  the  Church  of  Jesus 
Christ  of  Latter-day  Saints. 

(This  address  was  published  in  the  March,  1921,  issue  of 
the  Coast  Banker,  San  Francisco  and  Los  Angeles  and  was 
preceded  by  the  following  introduction : 

One  of  the  greatest  forces,  in  temporal  and  religious 
affairs  of  the  United  States  is  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
of  Latter-day  Saints,  commonly  known  as  the  "Mormon" 
Church.  Its  head  is  Heber  J.  Grant,  who  officiates  under 
the  title  of  President.  Mr.  Grant  possesses  the  character- 
istics of  a  real  leader — strength  of  purpose,  nobility  and 
humility  of  character,  enthusiasm  for  all  causes  in  which  he 
enters,  and  indefatigable  industry.  He  is  well  known  and 
respected  by  the  business  men  of  the  we&tern  third  of  the 
United  States,  regardless  of  their  religious  affiliations. 
For  years  he  has  been  a  banker,  and  he  holds  the  office 
of  president  of  the  Utah  State  National  Bank,  and  of  the 
Zion's  Savings  Bank  and  Trust  Company,  Salt  Lake  City 
and  for  many  years  he  has  been  strongly  identified  with 
the  insurance  business  as  well;  so  that  when,  on  the  death 
of  President  Smith,  he  succeeded  to  the  headship  of  the 
"Mormon"  Church,  he  brought  with  him  an  equipment 
that  fully  qualified  him  to  take  up  the  leadership  in  the 
various  corporations  in  which  the  "Mormon"  Church 
either  holds  a  dominant  position  or  is  interested  in  a  lesser 
degree. 

The  important  place  the  "Mormon"  Church  occupies 
not  only  in  Utal  '  but  in  Idaho,  Oregon,  Washington, 
Wyoming,  Arizona,  and  other  parts  of  the  Western  Hem- 
isphere is  told  by  President  Grant  in  a  most  thorough 
study  and  analysis;  therefore  we  recommend  to  our  read- 
ers, the  financial  people  of  the  western  third  of  the  United 


4         STRENGTH  OF  THE  "MORMON"  CHURCH 

States,  that  they  read  this  address  by  him,  because  it  will 
explain  to  them,  not  alone  his  plans,  but  those  of  the 
organization  which  is  so  great  a  factor  in  their  territory. 
—The  Editor.) 

I  consider  it  a  very  distinct  honor  indeed,  gentlemen, 
to  be  invited  to  speak  here  tonight  to  this  representative 
body  of  business  men  in  your  wonderful  city.  It  is  re- 
markable, to  me,  that  your  bank  clearings  should  ex- 
ceed the  showing  of  St.  Louis,  although  you  have  only 
one-half  the  population.  Utah  is  one  of  the  most  enter- 
prising of  all  the  enterprising  states  in  the  United 
States,  and  one  reason  I  consider  it  an  honor  to  speak 
here  is  the  fact  that  the  .early  "Mormons"  were  driven 
from  this  section  of  the  country.  (Laughter.)  I  am 
grateful  for  this  opportunity  of  addressing  a  body  of 
representative  men  in  the  very  place  from  which  our 
people  were  expelled  by  an  exterminating  order  of 
Governor  Boggs.  This  is  a  good  illustration  of  the 
wonderful  change  of  sentiment  in  the  United  States  re- 
garding the  people  with  whom  I  have  the  honor  to  be 
associated.  My  mother  was  cast  out  as  a  thing  of  evil, 
by  some  of  the  Ivins  family  of  the  East,  when  she  be- 
came a  member  of  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Lat- 
ter-day Saints.  Forty-two  years  later,  when  I  took  her 
back  to  Philadelphia  to  meet  her  relatives  and  friends, 
her  brothers  and  sisters  having  passed  away,  the 
nephews  and  nieces  fell  in  love  with  the  "very  fine  old 
lady." 

Many  people  imagine  that  the  "Mormons"  have  no 
faith  in  what  is  known  as  the  Bible.  You  will  pardon 
me  for  taking  a  little  of  your  time  to  correct  a  few 
erroneous  impressions  of  this  kind,  and  to  refer  briefly 
to  the  travels  of  our  people  before  the  pioneers  reached 
Utah.  The  "Mormons"  accept  the  Bible  as  the  word 
of  God,  but  they  also  believe  in  the  Book  of  Mormon. 
Comparatively  few  people  know  what  the  Book  of 
Mormon  purports  to  be.  It  is  the  sacred  history  of  the 
forefathers  of  the  American  Indian. 


STRENGTH  OF  THE  "MORMON"  CHURCH         5 

The  Latter-day  Saints  started  in  New  York,  where 
the  Church  was  organized  in  1830.  They  later  located 
at  Kirtland,  Ohio,  where  they  built  quite  a  large 
temple,  which  is  still  standing.  The  opposition  and  ill 
will  which  they  encountered  were  so  great  that  they 
decided  to  move  to  Missouri,  there  locating  in  and 
around  Far  West.  Previously  they  had  established  a 
colony  at  Independence,  a  few  miles  from  this  city, 
where  they  met  with  much  opposition  and  were  forced 
to  leave.  Afterwards,  as  I  have  stated,  they  were  ex- 
pelled from  the  state  of  Missouri  under  the  extermi- 
nating order  of  Governor  Lilburn  W.Boggs.  Later  they 
were  invited  to  locate  at  Commerce,  Illinois,  where 
there  were  very  few  people.  They  built  a  city  known  as 
"Nauvoo  the  Beautiful/'  in  which  within  a  few  years 
there  were  20,000  inhabitants.  Here,  too,  they  met  much 
opposition.  The  prejudice  against  them  caused  them  to 
be  bitterly  persecuted,  and  the  prophet  Joseph  Smith 
crossed  the  Mississippi  River,  intending  with  a  chosen 
body  of  men  to  explore  the  Rocky  Mountains  for  a 
place  of  settlement  and  gathering  for  the  people. 
About  this  time  he  uttered  a  prophecy  "that  the 
Saints  would  continue  to  suffer  much  affliction,  and 
would  be  driven  to  the  Rocky  Mountains ;  many  would 
apostatize,  others  would  be  put  to  death  by  our  perse- 
cutors, or  lose  their  lives  in  consequence  of  exposure 
of  disease ;  and  some  would  live  to  go  and  assist  in 
making  settlements,  and  build  cities,  and  see  the  Saints 
become  a  mighty  people  in  the  midst  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains."  At  the  time  this  prophecy  was  delivered, 
one  of  the  foremost  statesmen  in  the  United  States, 
Daniel  Webster,  is  quoted  as  having  made  a  remarkable 
statement  with  reference  to  the  western  part  of  our 
country,  in  which  Joseph  Smith  had  predicted  the 
Saints  would  become  a  mighty  people.  Said  Webster : 
"What  do  we  want  with  this  vast,  worthless  area? 
This  region  of  savages  and  wild  beasts,  of  deserts,  of 
.shifting  sands  and  whirlwinds  of  dust,  of  cactus  and 


6         STRENGTH  OF  THE  "MORMON"  CHURCH 

prairie  dogs?  To  what  use  could  we  ever  hope  to  put 
these  great  deserts  or  those  endless  mountain  ranges, 
impenetrable  and  covered  to  their  very  base  with  eter- 
nal snow?  What  can  we  ever  hope  to  do  with  the 
western  coast  of  three  thousand  miles,  rockbound, 
cheerless,  uninviting,  and  not  a  harbor  on  it?  Mr. 
President,  I  will  never  vote  one  cent  from  the  public 
treasury  to  place  the  Pacific  Coast  one  inch  nearer 
Boston  than  it  now  is."  (Laughter.) 

Even  statesmen,  it  appears,  sometimes  make  mis- 
takes. There  are  some  very  fine  harbors  on  the  Pacific 
Coast,  and  the  whole  section  west  of  the  Missouri 
River  certainly  has  developed  into  a  very  marvelous 
country. 

THE   MARTYRDOM   AND   SUBSEQUENT   EVENTS. 

Joseph  Smith  had  foreseen  that  his  people  would  be 
forced  again  to  leave  their  homes,  and,  as  I  say,  he  had 
started  West  with  a  picked  body  of  men  to  find  a  place 
of  refuge.  But  some  of  the  people  in  Nauvoo  accused 
him  of  running  away  and  deserting  his  flock.  He  there- 
upon returned  to  Nauvoo,  remarking  that  if  his  life  was 
of  no  value  to  his  people,  it  was  of  no  value  to  him.  He 
surrendered  to  the  Governor  of  the  state  of  Illinois. 
He,  with  his  brother,  Hyrum  Smith,  John  Taylor,  and 
Willard  Richards,  was  incarcerated  in  Carthage  jail, 
with  a  pledge  of  protection  from  the  Governor.  On  his 
way  to  Carthage  he  said:  "I  am  going  like  a  lamb  to 
the  slaughter ;  but  I  am  calm  as  a  summer's  morning ; 
T  have  a  conscience  void  of  offense  towards  God  and 
towards  all  men.  I  shall  die  innocent,  and  it  shall  yet 
be  said  of  me,  'he  was  murdered  in  cold  blood.' 5:  lie 
and  his  brother  were  killed  by  a  mob.  John  Taylor, 
who  afterwards  became  president  of  the  Church,  re- 
ceived four  gunshot  wounds  and  carried  in  his  body 
some  of  the  rifle-balls  to  his  grave.  Brigham  Young, 
as  leader  of  the  stricken  people,  then  entered  into  an 
agreement  that  the  latter  would  move  to  the  West,  He, 


STRENGTH  OF  THE  "MORMON"  CHURCH         7 

with  others,  began  exploring  the  country,  and  the  mi- 
gration started.  Quite  a  number  of  the  people  located 
at  Council  Bluffs;  but  that  winter,  after  many  of  the 
able-bodied  men  had  left,  the  mob  drove  the  remnant 
of  the  "Mormon"  people  from  their  beloved  city  of 
Nauvoo,  which  was  then  the  largest  city  in  the  state  of 
Illinois.  It  was  a  beautiful  and  populous  town  of 
twenty  thousand  souls  when  Chicago  was  a  mere  trad- 
ing post ;  and  they  deserted  that  city  willingly  because 
they  had  to.  (Laughter.)  The  first  detachments  of 
the  people  crossed  the  Mississippi  River  on  the  ice,  in 
the  dead  of  winter,  and  during  that  terrible  night  nine 
babies  were  born  with  no  shelter  save  the  rude  tents 
and  wagon  covers  under  which  their  mothers  were 
huddled.  No  tongue  can  tell,  no  pen  can  paint  the 
sufferings  and  the  hardships  of  the  "Mormon"  people 
in  these  drivings  from  Missouri  and  Illinois. 

They  next  located  at  Council  Bluffs,  moved  across 
the  river  and  built  Winter  Quarters,  now  known  as 
Florence.  In  the  meantime,  a  state  of  war  had  grown 
out  of  the  difficulties  between  the  United  States  and 
Mexico,  and  a  government  recruiting  officer  was  sent 
to  the  "Mormon"  camps  at  Council  Bluffs  soliciting 
five  hundred  men  for  military  service  to  march  against 
Mexico.  The  leaders  of  our  people  had  previously 
petitioned  the  President  of  the  United  States,  Martin 
Van  Buren,  for  redress  of  wrongs,  only  to  have  the 
President  announce :  "Your  cause  is  just,  but  I  can  do 
nothing  for  you,"  a  pusillanimous  remark,  to  say  the 
least.  Yet  now  five  hundred  men  were  demanded  from 
whom?  From  a  people  who  were  being  expatriated,  a 
people  who  had  been  driven  from  Missouri  under  cir- 
cumstances of  indescribable  cruelty,  a  people  who  had 
also  just  been  expelled  from  Illinois  in  the  dead  of  win- 
ter. Yet  Brigham  Young  said:  "Captain  Allen,  you 
shall  have  your  battalion ;  and  if  we  haven't  enough 
young  men,  we  will  give  you  old  men."  An  American 
flag  was  hoisted,  recruiting  started,  and  in  three  days 


8         STRENGTH  OF  THE  "MORMON"  CHURCH 

the  five  hundred  men  were  furnished.  I  maintain  that 
you  will  search  the  history  of  the  world  in  vain  to  find 
elsewhere  such  evidence  of  patriotism !  In  spite  of  their 
expatriation,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  in  order  to  save 
their  lives  they  had  been  compelled  to  abandon  and  flee 
from  their  homes,  they  responded  to  the  call  of  their 
country.  And  as  to  the  nature  of  the  service  rendered  by 
the  heroic  volunteers,  the  gallant  commander,  Lieuten- 
ant Colonel  St.  George  Cooke,  said  in  his  general  order 
announcing  the  completion  of  their  march : 

"History  may  be  searched  in  vain  for  an  equal  march 
of  infantry.  Half  of  it  has  been  through  a  wilderness 
where  nothing  but  .savages  and  wild  beasts  are  found ; 
or  deserts  where,  for  the  want  of  water,  there  is  no  liv- 
ing creature.  There,with  almost  hopeless  labor, we  have 
dug  deep  wells  which  the  future  traveler  will  enjoy. 
Without  a  guide  who  had  traversed  them,  w,e  have 
ventured  into  trackless  table  lands  where  water  was  not 
found  for  several  marches.  With  crowbar  and  pick 
and  ax  in  hand,  we  have  worked  our  way  over  moun- 
tains which  seemed  to  defy  aught  ,save  the  wild  goat, 
and  hewed  a  passage  through  a  chasm  of  living  rock 
more  narrow  than  our  wagons." 

I  might  incidentally  remark,  as  a  further  instance  of 
the  service  of  the  Mormon  Battalion  in  making  the 
West,  that  some  of  its  members  were  among  the  dis- 
coverers of  gold  in  California,  which  subsequently 
enriched  our  nation  many  millions  of  dollars. 

THE  GREAT   MIGRATION   TO   UTAH. 

Crossing  to  the  west  bank  of  the  Missouri  River, 
as  I  have  said,  the  "Mormon"  camps  established  Winter 
Quarters,  and  here  many  log  houses  were  built,  and  a 
frontier  settlement  was  made.  In  this  place  Brigham 
Young  planted  a  cottonwood  tree,  under  which  I  had 
the  honor  of  standing  two  weeks  ago  last  Sunday,  with 
some  of  my  companions ;  and  a  snapshot  was  taken  of 
us,  which  by  the  way  did  not  turn  out  very  well.  (I 


STRENGTH  OF  THE  "MORMON"  CHURCH         9 

hope  we  did  not  spoil  the  camera.)  It  is  a  large  tree, 
with  its  branches  extending  a  hundred  feet,  and  its 
trunk  about  twenty  feet  in  circumference.  It  is  dis- 
tinctive, historically  and  otherwise,  among  all  the  other 
trees  in  the  park  where  it  .stands.  A  short  distance 
from  that  spot  many  hundreds  of  the  early  "Mormons" 
are  buried ;  and  from  there,  in  1847,  Brigham  Young 
started  with  his  pioneer  company  of  143  men,  three 
women,  and  two  children  to  explore  the  unknown 
West,  and  find  an  abiding  place  for  the  homeless 
people.  I  shall  not  relate  the  many  incidents  of  peril 
and  anxiety  on  that  memorable  trip,  which  required 
many  weary  weeks  in  traveling  from  the  Missouri 
River  to  the  Salt  Lake  Valley,  which  was  then  prac- 
tically an  unknown  country.  Nor  was  the  prospect 
pleasing  when  they  reached  the  spot  where  our  chief 
city  now  stands.  "Weary  and  worn  as  I  am,"  said 
one  of  the  three  women,  "I  would  gladly  go  anolher 
thousand  miles  rather  than  stay  in  such  a  desolate 
place ;"  and  another,  her  sister,  echoed  the  same  senti- 
ment. But  Brigham  Young  had  said,  "This  is  the 
place,"  asserting  that  he  had  seen  the  valley  in  vision 
some  time  before,  and  that  it  was  the  spot  where  the 
Latter-day  Saints  should  locate.  He  had  been  taken 
sick  just  before  reaching  the  valley,  and  a  small  ad- 
vance company  was  sent  out  two  days  ahead  of  the 
main  body  of  pioneers  to  look  over  the  country  and 
if  possible  prepare  a  bit  of  land  for  planting.  They 
had  brought  some  plows,  but  found  the  ground  so 
hard  that  .several  plowshares  were  broken.  They 
finally  turned  the  water  of  a  small  stream  on  the 
parched  and  baked  soil,  and  on  the  first  day  succeeded 
in  planting  a  few  acres  of  crops.  So  far  as  I  know, 
this  was  the  beginning  of  that  system  of  irrigation 
which  has  meant  so  much  in  the  development  of  the 
United  States  of  America,  a  system  which  has  re- 
claimed millions  upon  millions  of  acres  of  land,  and 
has  led  to  the  expenditure  of  very  many  millions  of 


10        STRENGTH  OF  THE  "MORMON"  CHURCH 

dollars  by  the  government  in  reclamation  projects  it* 
Idaho,  Arizona,  Utah,  and  other  sections  of  the 
country. 

Some  of  the  pioneer  company  later  returned  to  Win- 
ter Quarters.  In  the  meantime  the  work  of  out- 
fitting and  preparing  for  the  general  migration  to 
the  West  had  gone  on  apace.  Large  trains  of  ox 
teams  were  organized  that  took  several  months  to 
cross  the  plains.  My  own  father  had  the  privilege  of 
commanding  one  of  those  companies — the  third  com- 
pany of  emigrants  that  went  to  Utah  that  first  season ; 
and  by  the  fall  of  1847,  there  were  1600  people  in 
the  Salt  Lake  Valley.  They  had  built  a  log  fort  with 
extensions,  and  a  number  of  log  houses.  Their  in- 
dustry was  prospectively  to  be  rewarded  with  fruit- 
ful harvests  in  1848,  when  myriads  of  crickets  ap- 
peared, devouring  everything  before  them.  Immi- 
gration had  continued  meanwhile,  and  now  the  peo- 
ple felt  that  ruin  and  starvation  stared  them  in  the 
face,  because  they  were  a  thousand  miles  from  any- 
where, so  to  speak,  and  it  appeared  that  the  crops 
would  be  utterly  lost  in  spite  of  all  they  could  do. 
Unless  that  harvest  could  be  saved,  there  was  nothing, 
for  them  to  look  forward  to  but  absolute  starvation. 
As  a  people  they  believe  God  came  to  their  rescue ; 
that  it  was  His  providence  that  from  the  islands  in 
the  Great  Salt  Lake  the  flocks  of  gulls  came  which 
devoured  the  crickets.  In  commemoration  of  this  de- 
liverance there  has  since  been  erected  a  very  beauti- 
ful monument,  and  I  shall  take  occasion  to  get  from 
Secretary  Tufts  a  list  of  the  members  of  your  club, 
and  when  I  return  home  will  mail  to  each  of  you  a 
booklet  entitled  "Utah,"  on  the  front  cover  of  which 
is  a  picture  of  the  monument,  erected  in  remembrance 
of  the  mercy  of  God  in  saving  from  starvation  th^ 
many  hundreds  of  early  pioneers  in  the  Salt  Lake 
Valley.  Our  Legislature  has  enacted  a  law  prohibit- 
ing the  killing  of  gulls ;  and  the  birds  are  so  tame  tint 


STRENGTH  OF  THE  "MORMON"  CHURCH        11 

they  will  come  into  our  fields,  and  follow  the  plow- 
man to  feast  on  the  worms  that  are  uncovered  by 
his  furrow. 

PIONEERING  THE  INTERMOUNTAIN   COUNTRY. 

In  the  next  few  years  the  "Mormons"  redeemed 
the  valleys  for  a  hundred  miles  north  and  three  hun- 
dred and  fifty  miles  to  the  south.  Originally,  Utah 
included  all  of  the  present  State  of  Utah,  all  of  Ne- 
vada, part  of  Colorado,  and  part  of  Wyoming  and 
Idaho ;  but  pieces  have  been  sliced  off  from  time  to 
time,  until  it  is  small  in  area  compared  with  what  it 
was  in  the  early  days,  perhaps  no  more  than  one- 
half  its  original  size. 

The  "Mormon"  people  have  been  not  only  the 
pioneers  in  settlement  and  in  irrigation  and  reclama- 
tion in  Utah,  but  they  were  the  pioneers  also  in  Idaho. 
A  little  settlement  that  was  once  in  Utah  is  now  in 
Idaho,  and  it  is  the  city  where  the  pioneers  of  th.e  Gem 
state  meet  once  a  year  to  celebrate  "Idaho  Day,"  be- 
ing the  starting  point  of  civilization  in  that  section. 
In  the  other  direction,  the  San  Luis  Valley  in  Colo- 
rado was  considered  altogether  too  high  in  elevation 
to  be  of  any  value  for  agriculture  until  a  "Mormon" 
colony  went  there  and  reclaimed  the  locality.  They 
proved  that  it  was  a  good  country  for  raising  crops, 
notwithstanding  the  fact  that  it  was  seven  thousand 
feet  in  elevation.  The  "Mormons"  were  also  among 
the  very  first  pioneers  to  go  into  Arizona.  There  was 
a  great  deal  of  prejudice  against  them,  but  it  has 
practically  all  disappeared.  Today  there  is  perhaps  a 
better  feeling  toward  our  people  in  Arizona  than  in 
any  other  section  in  which  they  are  located.  As  an 
illustration  of  the  good  will  existing  there  regarding 
the  "Mormon"  people :  when  a  novelist  by  the  name 
of  Winifred  Graham  came  over  here  from  England, 
telling  a  lot  of  unconscionable  lies  about  the  "Mor- 
mons," a  Senator  from  Arizona  stood  up  in  the  Sen- 


12        STRENGTH  OF  THE  "MORMON"  CHURCH 

ate  of  the  United  States  and  voluntarily  and  .em- 
phatically branded  her  statements  as  the  falsehoods 
which  they  were.  The  ex-Governor  of  the  state  also 
said  that  no  better  class  of  people  could  be  found 
anywhere  than  the  "Mormons"  of  Arizona,  adding 
that  in  one  respect  they  were  being  robbed  of  between 
2500  and  3000  per  cent  of  a  certain  class  of  taxes  in 
Arizona — because,  according  to  population,  they  were 
entitled  to  have  twenty-five  or  thirty  inmates  in  the 
state  penitentiary,  and  they  had  only  one  (laughter)  ; 
also  that  we  were  entitled  to  700  or  800  percent  more 
of  the  taxes  set  aside  for  the  support  of  the  insane, 
being  entitled,  according  to  population,  to  seven  or 
eight  inmates  in  the  insane  asylum,  whereas  w.e  had 
none. 

We  ask  people  to  judge  us  by  the  standard  laid 
down  by  our  Savior:  "By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know 
them."  I  was  reading  last  Saturday,  in  Chicago, 
from  Phil  Robinson's  book,  Sinners  and  Saints,  in 
which  he  states  that  he  is  at  the  defiance  of  any 
man  to  find  a  single  book,  with  one  exception,  written 
on  the  "Mormon"  question,  that  is  not  absolutely  un- 
true, because  practically  all  the  books  on  that  subject 
were  written  by  the  enemies  of  our  people,  and  are 
unfair.  In  the  book  I  refer  to,  Mr.  Robinson  gives 
the  "Mormons"  a  fine  certificate  of  character,  and 
among  other  things  says  that  he  nearly  choked  to 
death  for  "a  drink"  among  the  "Mormons"  while 
traveling  350  miles  to  the  south  and  a  hundred-odd 
miles  to  the  north,  until  after  inquiring  for  a  "back- 
slider" he  was  successful  in  finding  a  demijohn.  After 
that  he  got  along  very  well.  He  said  he  had  always 
supposed  water  was  for  the  cleansing  of  the  body  un- 
til he  arrived  in  Utah,  and  there  he  found  it  was  used 
for  drinking  purposes.  Mr.  Robinson  also  refers  to 
the  fact  that  although  we  had  80-odd  per  cent  of  the 
population  in  Utah,  the  remaining  17  per  cent  (as  I 


STRENGTH  OF  THE  "MORMON"  CHURCH        13 

recall)  furnished  80  per  cent  of  the  inmates  of  the 
territorial  penitentiary. 

The  first  great  commandment  is  to  "multiply  and 
replenish  the  earth ;"  and  Utah's  best  crop  is  babies. 
(Laughter.)  We  feel  very  proud  of  the  record  of 
our  people  in  that  particular.  We  can  not  begin  to 
compare  with  other  people  in  furnishing  divorces. 

Before  we  divided  on  party  lines  in  Utah  as 
Democrats  and  Republicans,  I  heard  a  Congressman 
say,  while  making  a  campaign  speech  in  Salt  Lake 
City,  that  hanging  on  the  wall  in  one  of  the  houses 
of  Congress  in  Washington  there  was  a  map  show- 
ing the  states  and  territories  of  the  Union.  The  ma^ 
was  black  originally,  but  as  education  grew,  it  was 
painted  white ;  and  he  stated  that  there  were  only 
four  whiter  spots  upon  that  map  than  Utah.  At  that 
time  Utah  was  a  territory  and  we  had  no  public 
lands  to  sell  to  help  us  in  education;  we  had  forged 
to  the  front  without  receiving  one  single,  solitary 
dollar  from  the  sale  of  public  lands  from  the  United 
States.  We  have  been  branded  as  an  ignorant  lot, 
and  yet  for  ninety-odd  years  we  have  been  sending 
our  young  men  to  Harvard  and  other  universities  to 
get  an  education,  and  they  have  made  a  record  of 
which  we  are  proud.  While  I  was  presiding  over 
the  European  mission  of  our  Church,  I  read  in  the 
newspapers  that  we  have  overtaken  and  equalled  one 
of  the  states  in  the  Union  for  second  place  in  respect 
to  literacy.  Doctor  Winship,  one  of  the  great  educa- 
tors of  our  country,  has  given  us  credit,  in  recent 
lectures,  for  having  the  finest  laws  on  education  of 
any  state  or  territory  in  the  Union. 

TEMPLE  BUILDING  AND  HOME  INDUSTRY. 

As  I  have  already  told  you,  the  early  "Mormons" 
erected  a  temple  soon  after  they  reached  Ohio,  and 
considering  the  small  number  of  people  that  were 
there,  it  was  a  wonderful  accomplishment.  They 


14        STRENGTH  OF  THE  "MORMON"  CHURCH 

erected  a  large  temple  at  Nauvoo,  which  was  de- 
stroyed by  the  mob,  after  the  expulsion  of  the  people. 
The  second  day,  after  the  arrival  of  the  pioneers  in 
the  Salt  Lake  Valley,  Brigham  Young  walked  to  the 
spot  where  the  great  temple  was  later  erected,  drove 
his  cane  into  the  ground,  and  said,  "Here  we  will 
build  the  Temple  of  our  God."  The  corners  were 
laid  forty  years,  to  a  day,  before  the  temple  was 
completed.  For  forty  long  years  the  people  contrib- 
uted of  their  means  toward  the  erection  of  that  tem- 
ple. As  a  child  I  contributed  fifty  cents  a  month ; 
later  as  a  boy  I  gave  a  dollar  a  month,  then  five  dol- 
lars, and  finally  made  a  contribution  of  several  thou- 
sand dollars  ,to  aid  in  its  completion.  In  the  mean- 
time the  pioneers  were  redeeming  a  country  which  was 
considered  absolutely  worthless  before  they  under- 
took its  reclamation.  The  noted  trapper,  Jim  Bridger, 
had  told  Brigham  Young  and  his  pioneer  company 
that  he  would  give  one  thousand  dollars  for  the  first 
ear  of  corn  ripened  in  the  Salt  Lake  Valley;  it  was 
quite  generally  considered  a  worthless  wilderness.  Yet, 
when  years  later  the  United  States  government  of- 
fered a  handsome  prize  for  the  best  five  acres  of 
wheat  raised  in  any  part  of  the  United  States,  Salt 
Lake  Valley  carried  off  the  prize.  The  temple  which, 
as  I  have  said,  was  forty  years  in  building  was 
erected  at  a  cost  of  over  four  millions  of  dollars.  I 
imagine  it  could  be  built  today,  even  at  the  high 
prices  of  labor  and  material,  for  a  million  and  a  half. 
But  in  those  days  it  took  an  ox  team  several  days  to 
go  to  the  mountains  and  bring  one  solitary  stone  for 
the  structure.  It  took  several  weeks  of  work  by  hand 
to  cut  that  stone.  The  footings  of  the  building  are 
sixteen  feet ;  the  walls  are  eight  feet  thick ;  and  it  was 
built,  as  Brigham  Young  advised  everybody  to  build, 
"to  last  a  thousand  years."  He  erected,  at  that  early 
day,  a  theatre  in  Salt  Lake  which  still  stands,  in 
which  all  of  the  leading  companies  that  visit  Utah 


STRENGTH  OF  THE  "MORMON*1  CHURCH        15 

put  on  their  plays.  It  was  built  when  I  was  a  child. 
Every  nail  in  it  was  carried  a  thousand  miles  from 
the  frontiers  at  the  Missouri  River,  when  nails  were 
a  dollar  a  pound.  Those  were  the  days  when  sugar 
was  selling  at  one  hundred  one  dollars  a  bag — one 
hundred  for  the  sugar  and  one  dollar  for  the  sack. 
When  people  went  to  the  theatre  they  took  their  mo- 
lasses in  a  can,  or  brought  a  squash  or  something 
else  to  pay  the  price  of  admission.  Fortunately  there 
was  no  war  tax ;  for  they  could  not  have  paid  it ;  they 
had  no  money.  Within  twenty  years  after  the  arrival 
of  the  pioneers,  the  "Mormon"  Tabernacle  was  built, 
with  a  seating  capacity  of  eight  thousand.  On  special 
occasions,  when  the  building  has  been  crowded,  more 
than  ten  thousand  people  have  been  counted.  The 
Tabernacle  was  erected  without  the  use  of  nails,  the 
roof  being  pinned  together  with  wooden  pins  and  tied 
with  rawhide  thongs.  At  the  time  of  its  completion, 
although  a  thousand  miles  from  civilization,  it  was 
the  largest  auditorium  in  the  United  States  of  Amer- 
ica without  a  center  support  to  the  roof;  and  it  is 
today  the  largest  except  where  steel  girders  have  been 
used  to  support  the  roof. 

A  concert  was  given  in  the  building,  by  our  Taber- 
nacle Choir  of  five  hundred  voices,  for  the  relief  of  the 
sufferers  from  the  Johnstown  flood.  The  net  re- 
ceipts, at  a  $1  a  seat,  amounted  to  $7,500,  which  was 
remitted  to  the  sufferers.  Yet  under  those  conditions 
our  people  built  some  splendid*  irrigation  projects. 
Some  of  them  would  cost  today  millions!  upon  mil- 
lions of  dollars,  and  they  were  built  by  the  co-opera- 
tive labor  of  the  people;  and  the  exchange  of  their 
products.  Brigham  Young  taught  the  people  to  sus- 
tain home  manufacture,  to  be  economical,  to  avoid  ex- 
travagant habits,  and  not  think  of  getting  this,  that, 
and  the  other  which  would  not  add  to  any  actual  com- 
fort. In  those  days  we  were  clothed  in  what  was 
known  as  "homespun,."  In  nearly  every  home  the 


16        STRENGTH  OF  THE  "MORMON"  CHURCH 

wife  would  take  the  wool  and  prepare  it  for  spinning, 
she  would  have  in  her  home  a  loom  on  which  she 
would  weave  the  rag  carpets.  When  we  'built  a 
canal,  the  only  money  we  needed  was  for  the  pur- 
chase of  plows  and  scrapers  and  for  powder  to  blast 
the  rocks.  Most  of  our  .early  great  enterprises  were 
made  possible  by  co-operative  labor.  I  know  of  one 
little  canal  on  which  the  settlers  worked  each  winter 
for  twelve  long  years,  and  reclaimed  the  ground  where 
now  stands  a  little  settlement  of  eight  hundred  or  a 
thousand  people.  The  accomplishments  of  Utah  have 
been  brought  aibout  by  pulling  together,  ;by  "team- 
work," by  absolute  unity,  and  co-operation,  which  I 
believe  existed  there  to  a  greater  extent  than  in  any 
other  community.  { 

Brigham  Young  has  the  honor  of  having  estab- 
lished in  Utah  the  first  department  store  in  our  coun- 
try— Zion's  Co-operative  Mercantile  Institution,  pf 
which  I  am  now  president.  This  list  of  companies 
(pointing  to  program)  of  which  I  am  credited  with 
being  president  fails  to  mention  those  which  come  my 
way  accidentally,  one  may  say,  because  I  became 
president  of  the  Church,  all  of  which  are  of  more 
importance  than  the  ones  on  the  list  here  published.One 
of  the  institutions  over  which  I  have  the  honor  to 
preside,  and  over  which  my  predecessors  from  Brig- 
ham  Young  to  Joseph  F.  Smith  have  presided,  is 
Zion's  Co-operative  Mercantile  Institution,  estab- 
lished in  early  days  to  prevent  ejxessive  profits  and 
to  protect  the  people  by  giving*  them  fair  goods  at  a 
fair  profit.  That  institution  now  does  a  business  of 
some  twelve  million  dollars  a  year. 

ESTABLISHED   BEET-SUGAR    INDUSTRY. 

Another  institution  that  I  have  the  honor  of  pre- 
siding over  is  the  Utah-Idaho  Sugar  Company.  I 
wish  to  say  to  you  gentlemen  here  that  we  have  the 
honor  of  having  erected  the  first  beet-sugar  factory 


STRENGTH  OF  THE  "MORMON"  CHURCH        17 

ever  built  in  the  United  States  of  America  with  Amer- 
ican mahinery.  There  had  been  several  factories 
built  with  imported  machinery;  in  fact,  away  back 
in  1862,  the- "Mormons"  sent  John  Taylor  (who  after- 
wards became  president  of  the  Church)  to  France  to 
bring  machinery  from  there  to  try  to  establish  the 
beet-sugar  industry  in  the  Great  Basin.  To  my  mind, 
perhaps  one  of  the  most  substantial  illustrations  of  the 
loyalty  and  of  the  co-operative  work  of  the  "Mor- 
mon" people  is  seen  in  the  following:  In  1891  when 
Baring  Brothers  failed  in  London,  with  their  invest- 
ments largely  in  the  Argentine  Republic,  that  fail- 
ure reached  clear  out  to  Salt  Lake  City;  and  as  there 
was  very  little  money  in  the  country  it  made  it  very 
hard  indeed  for  our  people.  Many  of  those  who  had 
subscribed  for  stock  in  the  sugar  company  were  un- 
able to  pay  their  subscription;  but  tne  president  of 
the  Church  said :  "We  will  build  that  factory  if  it 
breaks  the  credit  of  the  Church  itself ;  we  must  build 
it,  because  it  will  make  an  increased  product  from  the 
soil  and  therefore  be  beneficial  to  the  people."  The 
president  sent  me  East,  West,  North  and  South,  all 
through  the  country,  as  his  agent,  to  borrow  money 
with  which  to  build  that  factory.  After  we  had  failed 
in  New  York  and  other  Eastern  centers  to  get  money 
to'  finish  it,  I  went  to  San  Francisco  and  appealed 
to  Henry  Wadsworth,  then  manager  of  the  Wells 
Fargo  Bank,  to  loan  the  last  hundred  thousand  dollars 
that  we  needed.  In  my  appeal  I  said  to  him:  "Mr. 
Wadsworth,  when  you  w.ere  in  Salt  Lake  you  believed 
in  me  as  a  boy  when  I  worked  for  you;  you  gave  me 
$100  as  a  New  Year's  present,  and  stated  that  no  one 
else  in  the  bank  should  have  a  dollar  because  all  the 
others  watched  the  clock  to  see  how  soon  they  could 
get  out  of  the  front  door  after  3  o'clock,  whereas  I 
came  back  occasionally  and  worked  at  night.  Now 
that  I  am  one  of  the  leading  officials  of  the  'Mor- 
mon' Church  I  ask  you  to  believe  in  me,  and  to  fur- 


18        STRENGTH  OF  THE  "MORMON"  CHURCH 

nish  the  hundred  thousand  dollars  necessary  to  com- 
plete this  factory.  I  have  just  succeeded  in  getting 
fifty  thousand  dollars  from  the  Fireman's  Fund  In- 
surance Company  of  San  Francisco;  they  know  me 
well.  But  I  must  have  a  hundred  thousand  dollars 
more,  and  I  must  have  it  from  you."  I  pleaded  with 
him  to  deposit  the  money  in  Zion's  Savings  Bank  and 
Trust  Company,  in  Salt  Lake  City,  and  told  him  we 
could  convince  that  bank  that  our  securities  were  good. 
His  reply  was  that  "banks  were  failing  everywhere 
and  he  could  not  let  me  have  the  money."  Finally  I 
said:  "Mr.  Wadsworth,  the  beet-sugar  industry  must 
and  shall  be  established.  I  have  no  authority  to  offer 
you  the  note  of  the  Church,  but  I  pledge  you  four 
notes  of  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Latter-day 
Saints — twenty-five  thousand  due  in  six  months, 
twenty-five  thousand  in  a  year,  twenty-five  thousand 
in  eighteen  months,  and  twenty-five  thousand  in  two 
years,  with  twenty  indorsers,  individually  and  several- 
ly liable  for  the  obligation ;  you  to  write  out  twenty- 
five  names  of  the  strongest  financial  'Mormon'  men 
in  Salt  Lake  City,  and  I  will  guarantee  to  get  twenty 
indorsers  out  of  the  twenty- five."  He  said :  "My  boy, 
that  is  an  impossibility ;  no  twenty  men  on  earth  would 
guarantee,  individually  and  collectively,  one  hundred 
thousand  dollars  for  any  church."  "Well,"  I  replied, 
"we  are  a  little  different  from  any  other  church ;  I 
will  get  you  the  notes  and  indorsers  all  right."  He 
insisted  that  it  could  not  be  done.  "Then  you  don't 
need  to  give  me  the  money,"  I  said  at  last ;  "all  I  ask 
is  that  you  give  me  the  opportunity."  Then  he  said : 
"I  will  go  you  one  better;  I  will  write  thirty  names, 
and  if  you  can  get  any  twenty  out  of  the  thirty,  it 
will  be  satisfactory,  and  you  can  have  your  money." 
He  wrote  five  or  six  names,  tore  up  the  paper,  and 
said :  "Heber,  you  were  my  office  boy  fifteen  years 
ago.  Many  a  man  has  gone  broke  in  fifteen  years.  T 
just  write  up  to  my  successor  in  Salt  Lake  and 


STRENGTH  OF  THE  "MORMON"  CHURCH        19 

tell  him  to  write  the  names."  When  I  got  back  home, 
his  successor  wrote  a  list  of  names,  and  as  he  looked 
at  them  he  said:  "Those  names  remind  me  of  an  in- 
cident in  early  days  in  a  California  mining  camp. 
There  was  a  saloon-keeper  who  had  on  his  front  door 
a  list  of  names  of  the  people  who  owed  him  for 
whiskey.  One  day  his  wife  in  a  streak  of  cleanliness 
scrubbed  the  floor  and  even  washed  the  door,  and 
when  the  man  discovered  it  he  exclaimed:  'Good 
heavens!  you  have  ruined  me;  give  me  a  pencil 
quick,  and  maybe  I  can  still  make  them  out/  Then 
he  studied  out  the  names  as  best  he  could,  and  re- 
wrote them,  and  stood  and  looked  at  the  list.  Yon 
know  some  people  say  that  'damn'  is  only  emphasis ; 
and  with  emphasis  he  said:  'That  is  the  best  lot  of 
....  names  that  was  ever  on  that  door.' ':  So  this 
banker  said :  "This  is  the  best  lot  of  names  I  ever 
saw." 

A  FINANCIER'S  FAITH  AND  AID 

I  got  twenty-four  indorsers  out  of  the  thirty  men 
on  his  list ;  three  of  the  thirty  were  out  of  town,  and 
one  man  volunteered  to  sign  whose  name  was  not  on 
the  list,  but  who  happened  to  hear  two  of  the  gentle- 
men that  were  on  the  list  refusing  to  sign  the  note, 
these  taking  the  ground  that  it  was  not  good  morals 
for  a  church  to  borrow  money  to  loan  to  a  private  cor- 
poration. I  said  to  them:  "I  will  agree,  when  you  air1 
I  meet  the  Lord,  if  we  ever  do,  to  absolve  you  frcr* 
all  trouble  if  you  will  put  your  name  on  the  back  of 
these  notes.  (Laughter.)  It  will  be  time  enough  for 
you,  or  me,  to  decide  the  morals  of  the  question  when 
we  become  members  of  the  presidency  of  the  Church. 
The  presidency  have  signed  the  notes,  and  they  will 
have  to  answer  to  the  Lord  for  the  moral  part  of  it. 
Will  you  sign  the  notes,  or  will  you  not?"  They  de- 
clined. Then  I  had  this  conversation  with  the  vol- 
untary signer  to  whom  I  have  referred.  He  lived  in 


20        STRENGTH  OF  THE  "MORMON"  CHURCH 

Ogclen  and  was  worth  more  than  any  ten  men  who 
had  signed  the  note — when  he  died  his  estate  was 
worth  fifteen  to  twenty  millions  of  dollars.  He  had 
been  writing  a  letter  and  after  the  two  men  declined, 
he  said :  "Heber,  I  have  heard  your  story.  Is  my  name 
on  the  list?"  "No,"  I  replied,  "there  are  only  Salt  Lake 
men  on  the  list."  He  said  he  would  like  to  look  at  the 
notes.  I  handed  them  to  him,  and  he  wrote  his  name  on 
the  back  of  each  one  without  .even  reading  the  notes. 
He  handed  them  back,  with  the  remark:  "I  don't  think 
my  name  will  hurt  them."  Then  he  said  to  me: 
"Heber,  tell  the  president  of  the  Church  that  any  time 
he  wishes  those  notes  paid,  if  he  will  notify  David 
Eccles  thirty  days  ahead — I  always  keep  from  one 
to  three  hundred  thousand  dollars  in  bank,  on  certifi- 
cates of  deposit,  so  that  on  thirty  days'  notice  I  can 
draw  it  out — -I  will  be  glad  to  pay  these  notes,  and 
the  Church  can  pay  me  in  one  year,  or  five  years,  or 
ten  years,  or  when  convenient."  Maybe  you  think  I 
did  not  want  to  hug  this  man  about  that  time. 
(Laughter.) 

Then  Mr.  Eccles  added :  "Tell  the  president  of  the 
Church  that  if  he  wants  my  name  on  another  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  of  notes,  just  to  send  you  up 
to  Ogden.  You  have  never  been  In  my  house.  I  will 
give  you  supper,  bed  and  breakfast ;  and  we  have  pen 
and  ink."  By  the  way,  I  went  up  there  some  time 
later,  and  got  his  signature  for  another  $100,000. 
(Laughter.)  When  he  told  me  the  street  on  which 
he  lived,  I  said:  "Don't  tell  me  what  street  you  live 
on.  Step  across  the  road  to  my  office  and  I  will  show 
you  a  plat  of  your  house.  I  have  it  insured." 
(Laughter.) 

I  have  referred  to  some  of  the  buildings  erected  bv 
the  Latter-day  Saints,  among  them  the  great  Salt 
Lake  Temple.  When  I  was  a  boy  they  erected  a  temple 
also  at  St.  George,  three  hundred  fifty  miles  south  of 
Salt  Lake  City,  at  a  cost  of  several  hundred  thousand 


STRENGTH  OF  THE  "MORMON"  CHURCH       21 

dollars.  Later,  when  I  was  a  young  man  of  twenty- 
six,  they  completed  a  temple  in  Logan,  costing  sev- 
eral hundred  thousand  dollars.  Some  three  or  four 
years  later  they  erected  another  temple,  just  as  large, 
at  Manti,  Utah.  Last  November,  on  my  birthday,  I 
was  in  the  Hawaiian  Islands  and  dedicated  a  temple 
there  which  cost  over  two  hundred  thousand  dollar:-. 
This  coming  summer  we  expect  to  dedicate  in  Canada, 
a  temple  costing  over  six  hundred  thousand  dollars.  We 
have  spent  millions  of  dollars  in  the  erection  of  ward 
chapels  and  district  meeting  houses,  also  millions  of 
dollars  in  erecting  Churth-school  Ibuildings,  from 
Canada  to  Mexico.  During  the  present  year  we  will 
supply,  for  maintenance  of  Church  schools  alone — to 
say  nothing  of  erection  of  buildings — three-quarters 
of  a  million  dollars. 

Time  will  not  permit  me  to  speak  in  detail  of  the 
part  the  Church  has  played  in  establishing  and  foster- 
ing institutions  for  the  good  of  the  people.  I  have  re- 
ferred to  Zion's  Co-operative  Mercantile  Institution 
and  to  the  beet-sugar  industry.  The  latter,  the  first 
year  produced  only  one  million  one  hundred  thousand 
pounds  of  sugar.  The  Dyers,  of  Cleveland,  Ohio,  who, 
built  this  factory,  left  Utah  after  two  or  three  years, 
believing  that  the  sugar  industry  in  Utah  would  be  a 
failure :  but  among  the  "Mormon"  people  there  is  a 
considerable  percent  of  Scotch,  Dutch  and  Scandi- 
navian blood,  and  they  are  somewhat  stubborn.  You 
know  it  is  said  there  is  nobody  on  earth  quite  as  stub- 
born as  a  Scotchman,  except  a  Dutchman.  I  happen 
to  be  Scotch  on  my  father's  side  and  Dutch  on  my 
mother's.  Our  people  have  been  brought  together 
from  all  sections  of  the  country ;  in  fact,  we  have  con- 
verts from  all  parts  of  the  world.  They  did  not  al- 
low difficulties  to  discourage  them ;  they  did  not  give 
up ;  and  in  1920,  the  Utah-Idaho  Sugar  Company  will 
produce  over  two  million  one  hundred  thousand  bags 
of  one  hundred  pounds  each  of  sugar,  instead  of  one 


22        STRENGTH  OF  THE  "MORMON"  CHURCH 

million  one  hundred  thousand  pounds  as  in  the  first 
year.  There  are  other  sugar  companies  in  Utah  and 
Idaho  and  their  combined  product  will  be  equally  ?s 
much  as  ours.  So  that  the  beet-sugar  industry  in  the 
intermountain  section  will  produce  this  year  over  four 
million  bags  of  sugar.  It  is  true  that  Colorado  has 
outstripped  us  in  the  beet-sugar  production ;  but  the 
original  people  who  went  over  into  Colorado  and  built 
the  first  factory,  received  their  education  in  the  first 
factory  built  in  Utah. 

"MORMON"  PIONEER  HYMN. 

Some  day  a  story  will  be  written  about  the  suffer- 
ings and  hardships  of  the  "Mormon"  pioneers  while 
crossing  the  plains.  I  feel  disposed  to  tell  at  least  one 
little  incident  in  connection  with  the  pioneer  journey. 
When  the  "Mormons"  were  at  Winter  Quarters,  pre- 
paring to  outfit  their  companies  to  travel  by  ox  team 
to  Utah,  Brigham  Young  turned  to  a  man  named  Wil- 
liam Clayton  and  said :  "Before  the  first  company 
starts  for  Salt  Lake  Valley,  I  want  you  to  write  a 
hymn  that  will  inspire  and  comfort  and  cheer  and  bless 
the  people  on  their  long  journey."  William  Clayton 
went  away,  and  is  reputed  to  have  returned  the  same 
day  with  what  is  known  as  the  great  "Mormon" 
pioneer  hymn. 

When  I  arrived  in  Liverpool  to  preside  over  the 
European  mission,  as  successor  to  the  father  of  Doc- 
tor Richard  R.  Lyman,  who  is  here  with  us  tonight 
(a  professor  of  engineering  in  the  University  of  Utah 
and  graduate  from  Michigan  University),  President 
Lymnn  said:  "We  will  sing  your  favorite  hymn  to- 
night." I  replied  that  I  hadn't  any  favorite.  "All  the 
leaders  of  the  Church  ought  to  have  a  favorite  song," 
said  President  Lyman;  "my  favorite  is,  'School  thy 
feelings,  O  my  brother;  train  thy  warm  impulsive 
soul.'  The  favorite  of  my  bosom  friend  John  Henry  . 
Smith,  is  'Up,  awake,  ye  defenders  of  Zion.'  "  And 


STRENGTH  OF  THE  "MORMON"  CHURCH       23 

he  named  the  favorite  hymns  of  about  a  dozen  of  our 
Church  leaders.  Finally  I  said:  "Hold  on;  I  can 
choose  my  favorite  in  a  quarter  of  a  minute — 'Come, 
come,  ye  Saints/  ' 

Come,  come,  ye  Saints,  no  toil  nor  labor  fear, 

But  with  joy  wend  your  way; 
Though  hard  to  you  this  journey  may  appear, 

Grace  shall  be  as  your  day. 
'Tis  better  far  for  us  to  strive 
Our  useless  cares  from  us  to  drive, 
Do  this,  and  joy  your  hearts  will  swell 
All  is  well!  All  is  well! 

Why  should  we  mourn,  or  think  our  lot  is  hard? 

'Tis  not  so;  all  is  right! 
Why  should  we  think  to  earn  a  great  reward, 

If  we  now  shun  the  fight? 
Gird  up  your  loins,  fresh  courage  take, 
Our  God  will  never  us  forsake; 
And  soon  we'll  have  this  tale  to  tell — 
All  is  well!  All  is  well! 

We'll  find  the  place  which  God  for  us  prepared, 

Far  away  in  the  West; 
Where  none  shall  come  to  hurt  or  make  afraid; 

There  the  Saints  will  be  blest. 
We'll  make  the  air  with  music  ring, 
Shout  praises  to  our  God  and  King; 
Above  the  rest  these  words  we'll  tell — 
All  is  well!  All  is  well! 

And  should  we  die  before  our  journey's  through, 

Happy  day!  all  is  well! 
We  then  are  free  from  toil  and  sorrow  too; 

With   the  just  we   shall   dw,ell. 
But  if  our  lives  are  spared  again 
To  see  the  Saints  their  rest  obtain, 
O,  how  we'll  make  this  chorus  swell-- 
All is  well!  All  is  well! 

PATHETIC   INCIDENT   OF   THE   PLAINS. 

One  day  my  father-in-law  said  to  me :  "Heber,  for 
twenty  long  years  I  have  listened  in  vain  for  our  choirs 
to  sing  the  fourth  verse  of  'Come,  come,ye  Saints/  I 


24       STRENGTH  OF  THE  "MORMON"  CHURCH 

believe  the  rising  generation  know  nothing  whatever 
of  the  comfort  and  cheer  which  we  received,  while 
crossing  the  plains,  from  singing  that  pioneer  hymn 
or  they  never  would  be  guilty  of  leaving  off  the  fourth 
verse,  which  we  looked  upon  as  a  prayer."  In  one  of 
the  revelations  to  our  Church  we  are  told  by  the  Lord : 
"For  my  soul  delighteth  in  the  song  of  the  heart,  yea, 
the  song  of  the  righteous  is  a  prayer  unto  me,  and  it 
shall  be  answered  with  a  blessing  upon  their  heads." 
My  father-in-law  said  that  hymn  was  a  blessing  to 
everyone  who  sang  it,  and  particularly  the  last  verse 
which  they  sang  and  meant  every  word  of  it : 

And  should  we  die  before  our  journey's  through, 

Happy  day!  all  is  well! 
We  then  are  free  from  toil  and  sorrow  too; 

With  the  just  we  shall  dwell. 

Then  he  related  the  following  incident:  "One 
of  the  men  in  our  company  crossing  the  plains  was 
late  coming  into  camp  one  night.  (In  those  early 
companies  they  traveled  a  day  and  a  half  or  two  days 
apart,  and  had  three  companies  going  practically  to- 
gether, so  that  in  case  oi  Indian  trouble,  having  a  few 
horses  with  -each  company,  men  with  guns  could  go 
back  or  forward.)  As  this  man  had  not  reached 
camp,  and  it  was  getting  late,  we  organized  a  volun- 
teer company  to  go  back  to  see  if  he  had  been  waylaid 
by  Indians.  Just  as  we  were  ready  to  start,  we  saw 
him  coming  in  the  distance.  He  explained  that  he  had 
been  sick,  and  as  he  happened  to  have  the  last  wagon 
in  the  company,  he  was  alone,  and  had  to  lie  down  by 
the  road  for  a  few  hours'  rest.  He  was  very  feeble 
when  he  came  into  camp,  so  we  unyoked  his  oxen,  and 
got  his  supper  ready.  After  supper  he  sat  on  a  large 
rock  by  the  campfire  and  sang  'Come,  come,  ye  Saints.' 
It  was  the  rule  of  the  camp  that  whenever  any  one 
started  to  sing  this  pioneer  hymn,  all  the  others  should 
join  in;  but  in  this  case  it  happened  that  none  of  us 


STRENGTH  OF  THE  "MORMON"  CHURCH       25 

joined  in  the  song.  When  he  had  finished,  I  looked 
around  and  I  did  not  see  a  dry  eye.  The  next  morning? 
noticing  that  he  had  not  yoked  up  his  oxen,  we  went 
to  his  wagon  and  found  that  he  had  died  during  the 
night.  We  dug  a  shallow  grave,  buried  his  body,  and 
to  the  head  of  his  grave  we  rolled  the  stone  on  which 
he  sat  the  night  before,  while  singing,  'And  should  we 
die  before  our  journey's  through,  happy  day!  all  is 
well!  We  then  are  free  from  toil  and  sorrow  too; 
with  the  just  we  shall  dwell/ ':  My  father-in-law 
started  to  tell  me  something  else,  but  stopped  and 
said :  "Never  mind."  Years  later  the  Burlington  rail- 
road, while  surveying  its  line  through  Nebraska  and 
Wyoming,  found  a  broken  wagon  tire  sticking  out  of 
the  ground,  on  which  there  had  been  chiseled  the 
words:  "Rebecca  Winters;  age  SO  years."  The  sur- 
veyers  with  delicate  kindness  and  consideration  went 
back  three  or  four  miles,  and  changed  the  line  of  the 
road  in  order  to  miss  that  lonely  grave.  The  railroad 
company  fenced  the  spot  and  wrote  to  Utah  to  find 
out  if  any  one  knew  Rebecca  Winters.  She  was  my 
wife's  grandmother.  No  doubt  my  father-in-law  had 
intended  to  tell  me  during  the  conversation  above 
quoted,  that  when  he  came  to  Salt  Lake  City  from  his 
home  in  another  part  of  the  territory,  to  meet  an  im- 
migrant train  on  which  he  expected  to  find  his  be- 
loved mother,  he  learned  that  she,  too,  had  died  be- 
fore her  journey  "was  through."  We  have  erected 
a  little  monument  at  the  grave,  inscribing  on  one  side 
the  history  of  Grandma  Winters,  and  on  the  other 
side  the  fourth  verse  of  "Come,  come,  ye  Saints,  no 
toil  nor  labor  fear." 

AS     COLONIZERS    AND     NATION-BUILDERS. 

It  is  this  spirit  among  the  "Mormon"  people,  of  co- 
operation, this  willingness  to  stand  one  by  the  other, 
and  to  build  up  the  communities,  that  has  helped  to 
redeem  the  desert,  that  has  enabled  them  to  make  a 


26        STRENGTH  OF  THE  "MORMON"  CHURCH 

j*ecord  in  Canada,  in  Mexico,  as  well  as  in  our  own 
country — that  has  given  them  the  splendid  standing 
and  reputation  they  enjoy.  They  were  regarded  as 
the  foremost  colonists  of  all  Mexico,  fn  the  estimation 
of  that  great  leader  of  the  republic,  the  late  General 
Diaz.  No  one  would  suspect  that  that  iron  character 
would  be  guilty  of  shedding  a  tear,  and  yet  on  the 
last  trip  he  took  to  Chihuahua  to  visit  the  state  fair, 
when  he  saw  the  exhibit  of  industry  and  frugality,  the 
saddles  and  the  harness,  the  canned  fruit,  the  bottled 
fruit,  the  exhibits  from  the  "Mormon"  academy  and 
the  pictures  of  the  "Mormon"  Church  schools  in 
Juarez,  the  old  warrior  wiped  his  eyes  and  said :  "What 
could  I  not  do  with  my  beloved  Mexico  if  I  only  had 
more  citizens  and  settlers  like  the  'Mormons/  " 

Wherever  we  have  gone,  we  have  made  a  success. 
The  "Mormon"  people  believe  in  education ;  they  be- 
lieve in  art,  in  literature,  in  science,  in  advancement. 
They  sent  their  tabernacle  choir  of  two  hundred  fifty 
voices  to  the  Chicago  Fair  in  1893,  and  won  the  sec- 
ond prize  in  competition  with  all  the  world,  for  the 
best  choir  of  that  number  of  voices.  The  choir  that 
won  first  prize,  I  understand,  had  hired  the  best  fifty 
voices  from  Wales  to  help  them  out.  (Laughter.)  We 
put  in  a  little  protest,  but  the  protest  did  not  work. 
One  of  the  producers  of  operas,  concerts,  and  lectures, 
a  great  theatrical  man  of  New  York,  told  me  that 
he  was  at  the  fair  and  heard  the  choirs  sing;  and  his 
verdict  was  that  those  fifty  voices  did  not  help  the 
other  choir,  their  strength  and  power  destroyed  per- 
fect harmony;  "but,  of  course,"  he  said,  "it  would 
never  have  done  to  give  you  miserable  'Mormons' 
the  five-thousand-dollar  prize,  although  if  I  had  been 
the  judge  you  would  have  received  it." 

It  was  my  intention  to  speak  from  notes  on  this 
occasion,  because  this  is  my  first  attempt  at  talking  to 
an  Pii-dience  like  this.  The  first  thing  I  had  intended 
to  do  was  to  read  a  poem,  but  I  forgot  all  about  it 


STRENGTH  OF  THE  "MORMON"  CHURCH       27 

until  I  looked  at  these  notes.  Now  that  I  see  my  time 
is  about  up,  I  am  going  to  close  with  what  should 
have  been  the  beginning  and  use  the  remaining  few 
minutes  in  reading  this  poem  and  a  statement  regard- 
ing Joseph  Smith.  Some  four  years  ago  I  happened 
to  buy  this  book,  and  since  then  I  have  given  away 
over  five  hundred  copies.  I  have  just  ordered  some- 
thing over  a  thousand  to  send  out,  at  the  expense  of 
the  Church,  to  our  missionaries  in  the  United  States. 
I  am  very  grateful  to  be  here,  as  I  said  in  the  open- 
ing of  my  remarks,  and  I  hope  you  will  get  acquainted 
with  me.  This  poem  is  from  the  pen  of  Edgar  A. 
Guest,  and  is  entitled : 

WHEN  YOU  GET  TO  KNOW  A  FELLOW. 

When  you  get  to  know  a  fellow,  know  his  joys  and  know 

his  cares, 
When   you've   come   to   understand   him   and  the  burdens 

that  he  bears, 
When    youVe    learned    the    fight    he's    making    and    the 

troubles  in  his  way, 
Then  you  find  that  he  is  different  than  you  thought  him 

yesterday. 
You  find  his   faults  are  trivial  and  there's  not  so  much  to 

blame 
In  the  brother   that  you  jeered  at  when   you   only  knew 

his  name. 

You  are  quick  to  see  the  blemish  in  the  distant  neighbor's 

style, 
You  can  point  to  all  his  errors  and  may  sneer  at  him  the 

while, 
And  your  prejudices  fatten  and  your  hates  more  violent 

grow 

As  you  talk  about  the  failures  of  the  man  you  do  not  know, 
But    when    drawn    a    little    closer,    and    your    hands    and 

shoulders  touch, 
You    find    the    traits    you    hated    really    don't    amount    to 

much. 

When  you  get  to  know  a  fellow,  know  his   every  mood 

and  whim, 

You  begin  to  find  the  texture  of  the  splendid  side  of  him; 
You  begin  to  understand  him,  and  you  cease  to  scoff  and 

sneer. 


28        STRENGTH  OF  THE  "MORMON"  CHURCH 

For  with  understanding  always  prejudices  disappear. 
You  begin  to  find  his  virtues  and  his  faults  you  cease  to 

tell, 
For  you  seldom  hate  a  fellow  when  you  know  him  very 

well. 

When  next  you  start  in  sneering  and  your  phrases  turn  to 
blame, 

Know  rnore  of  him  you  censure  than  his  business  and  his 
name; 

For  it's  likely  that  acquaintance  would  your  prejudice  dis- 
pel 

And  you'd  really  come  to  like  him  if  you  knew  him  very 
well. 

When  you  get  to  know  a  fellow  and  you  understand  his 
ways. 

Then  his  faults  won't  really  matter,  for  you'll  find  a  lot 
to  praise.  , 

(Applause.) 

TRIBUTE  TO  THE  FOUNDER. 

Brigham  Young,  some  day,  will  be  acknowledged  as 
one  of  the  greatest  leaders  and  pioneers  that  the  world 
has  ever  known,  and  yet  I  want  you  to  know  that  all 
that  has  been  accomplished,  by  so-called  "Mormonism" 
and  by  our  people,  was  built  upon  the  broad  founda- 
tion laid  by  the  man  who  was  martyred  in  Carthage 
jail.  He  gave  the  Church  a  book  of  revelations  of 
hundreds  of  pages.  Brigham  Young  gave  but  one 
revelation  pertaining  to  the  organizing  of  the  pioneer 
companies.  John  Taylor  gave  but  one  revelation  dur- 
ing his  presidency;  and  his  successors  promulgated 
110  new  revelations.  The  foundation  was  laid  by  the 
Prophet  Joseph  Smith  for  all  that  has  been  accom- 
plished. He  gave  his  life,  in  Carthage  jail,  sealing 
with  his  blood  the  divinity  of  his  testimony,  .and  credit 
is  due  to  this  wonderful  leader  for  what  has  been  ac- 
complished. I  desire  to  read  a  testimony  given  by 
Josiah  Quincy,  a  man  who  knew  Washington  and 
others  of  the  country's  great  founders,  a  man  who  was 
once  Mayor  of  Boston,  and  a  man  who  was  on  the 
reception  committee  to  welcome  Lafayette  when  he 


STRENGTH  OF  THE  "MORMON"  CHURCH       29 

came  over  here  from  France.    In  his  book,  Figures  of 
the  Past9  he  says : 

"It  is  by  no  means  improbable  that  some  future 
textbook  for  the  use  of  generations  yet  unborn  will 
contain  a  question  something  like  this :  What  his- 
torical American  of  the  nineteenth  century  has  ex- 
erted the  most  powerful  influence  upon  the  destinies 
of  his  countrymen  ?  And  it  is  by  no  means  impossible 
that  the  answer  to  that  interrogatory  may  be  thus 
written :  'Joseph  Smith,  the  'Mormon'  Prophet/  And 
the  reply,  absurd  as  it  doubtless  seems  to  most  men 
now  living,  may  be  an  obvious  commonplace  to  their 
descendants.  History  deals  in  surprises  and  paradoxes 
quite  as  startling  as  this.  The  man  who  established 
a  religion  in  this  age  of  free  debate,  who  was  and  is 
today  accepted  by  hundreds  of  thousands  as  a  direct 
emissary  from  the  Most  High — such  a  rare  human 
being  is  not  to  be  disposed  of  by  pelting  his  memory 
with  unsavory  epithets.  Fanatic,  imposter,  charlatan, 
he  may  have  been;  but  these  hard  names  furnish  no 
solution  to  the  problem  he  presents  to  us.  Fanatics 
and  impostors  are  living  and  dying  every  day,  and 
their  memory  is  buried  with  them ;  but  the  wonderful 
influence  which  this  founder  of  a  religion  exerted 
and  still  exerts  throws  him  into  relief  before  us,  not 
as  a  rogue  to  be  criminated,  but  as  a  phenomenon  to 
be  explained.  The  most  vital  questions  Americans 
are  asking  each  other  today  have  to  do  with  this  man 
and  what  he  has  left  us.  *  *  *  A  generation  other 
than  mine  must  deal  with  these  questions.  Burning 
questions  they  are,  which  must  give  a  prominent  place 
in  the  history  of  the  country  to  that  sturdy  self-as- 
serter  whom  I  visited  at  Nauvoo.  Joseph  Smith, 
claiming  to  be  an  inspired  teacher,  faced  adversity 
such  as  few  men  have  been  called  to  meet,  enjoyed 
a  brief  season  of  prosperity  such  as  few  men  have 
ever  attained,  and,  finally,  forty-three  days  after  I 
saw  him,  went  cheerfully  to  a  martyr's  death.  When 


30       STRENGTH  OF  THE  "MORMON"  CHURCH 

he  surrendered  his  person  to  Governor  Ford,  in  order 
to  prevent  the  shedding  of  blood,  the  prophet  had  a 
presentiment  of  what  was  before  him.  'I  am  going  like 
a  lamb  to  the  slaughter,'  he  is  reported  to  have  said, 
'but  I  am  as  calm  as  a  summer's  morning.  I  have  a 
conscience  void  of  offense  and  shall  die  innocent.'  I 
have  no  theory  to  advance  respecting  this  extraordi- 
nary man.  I  shall  simply  give  the  facts  of  my  inter- 
course with  him. 

"A  fine-looking  man — 

[Incidentally,  my  mother  tells  me  he  was  the 
finest  looking  man  she  ever  saw ;  he  stood  over  six 
feet  high.] 

"A  fine-looking  man  is  what  the  passer-by  would 
instinctively  have  murmured  upon  meeting  the  remark- 
able individual  who  had  fashioned  the  mold  which  was 
to  shape  the  feelings  of  so  many  thousands  of  his  fel- 
low mortals.  But  Smith  was  more  than  this,  and  one 
could  not  resist  the  impression  that  capacity  and  re- 
source were  natural  to  his  stalwart  person.  I  have  al- 
ready mentioned  the  resemblance  he  bore  to  Elisha  R. 
Potter,  of  Rhode  Island,  whom  I  met  in  Washing- 
ton in  1826.  The  likeness  was  not  such  as  would  be 
recognized  in  a  picture,  but  rather  one  that  would  be 
felt  in  a  grave  emergency.  Of  all  men  I  have 

met " 

[Remember  the  writer  had  met  Washington,  he 
had  been  private  secretary  to  John  Adams,  and  he  had 
met  Lafayette  and  the  great  men  of  his  day] 

NATURAL    LEADER    AND    STATESMAN. 

"Of  all  men  I  have  met,  these  two  seemed  best  en- 
dowed with  that  kingly  faculty  which  directs,  as  by 
instrinsic  right,  the  feeble  or  confused  souls  who  are 
looking  for  guidance." 

[In  passing,  I  may  remark  that  you  can  rea3  in  one 
book  written  against  the  "Mormons"  that  Joseph 
Smith  got  all  his  inspiration  and  revelations  while  he 
was  having  fits.  ( Laughter. )  ] 


STRENGTH  OF  THE  "MORMON"  CHURCH        31 

"We  then  went  on  to  talk  of  politics.  Smith  recog- 
nized the  curse  and  iniquity  of  slavery,  though  he  op- 
posed the  methods  of  the  abolitionists.  His  plan  was 
for  the  nation  to  pay  for  the  slaves  from  the  sale  of  the 
public  lands.  'Congress/  he  said,  'should  be  compelled 
to  take  this  course,  by  petitions  from  all  parts  of  the 
country;  but  the  petitioners  must  disclaim  all  alliance 
with  those  who  would  disturb  the  rights  of  property 
recognized  by  the  Constitution  and  which  foment  in- 
surrection. It  may  be  worth  while  to  remark  that 
Smith's  plan  was  publicly  advocated  eleven  years  later 
by  one  who  has  mixed  so  much  practical  shrewdness 
with  his  lofty  philosophy.  In  1855,  when  men's  minds 
had  been  moved  to  their  depths  on  the  question  of 
slavery,  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  declared  that  it  should 
be  met  in  accordance  'with  the  interest  ot  the  South 
and  with  the  settled  conscience  of  the  North.  It  is 
not  really  a  great  task,  a  great  fight  for  this  country  to 
accomplish,  to  buy  that  property  of  the  planter,  as  the 
British  nation  bought  the  West  Indian  slaves.'  He 
further  says  that  the  'United  States  will  be  brought 
to  give  every  inch  of  their  public  lands  for  a  purpose 
like  this/  We,  who  can  look  back  upon  the  terrible 
cost  of  the  fratricidal  war  which  put  an  end  to  slav- 
ery, now  say  that  such  a  solution  of  the  difficulty 
would  have  been  worthy  a  Christian  statesman.  But 
if  the  retired  scholar  was  in  advance  of  his  time  when 
he  advocated  this  disposition  of  the  public  property  in 
1855,  what  shall  I  say  of  the  political  and  religious' 
leader  who  had  committed  himself,  in  print,  as  well  as 
in  conversation,  to  the  same  course  in  1844?  If  the  at- 
mosphere of  men's  opinions  was  stirred  by  such  a 
proposition  when  war-clouds  were  discernible  in  the 
sky,  was  it  not  a  statesmanlike  word  eleven  years 
earlier,  when  the  heavens  looked  tranquil  and  benef- 
icent ? 

"General    Smith   proceeded  to   unfold   still   further 
his  views  upon  politics.     He  denounced  the  Missouri 


32        STRENGTH  OF  THE  "MORMON"  CHURCH 

Compromise  as  an  unjustifiable  concession  for  the 
benefit  of  slavery.  It  was  Henry  Clay's  bid  for  the 
presidency.  Doctor  Goforth  might  have  spared  him- 
self the  trouble  of  coming  to  Nauvoo  to  electioneer  for 
a  duellist  who  would  fire  at  John  Randolph,  but  was 
not  brave  enough  to  protect  the  Saints  in  their  rights  as 
American  citizens.  Clay  told  his  (Smith's)  people 
to  go  to  the  wilds  of  Oregon  and  set  up  a  government 
o£  their  own.  Oh,  yes,  the  Saints  might  go  into  the  wil- 
derness and  obtain  the  justice  of  the  Indians,  which  im- 
becile, time  serving  politicians  would  not  give  them 
in  the  land  of  freedom  and  equality.  The  prophet  then 
talked  of  the  details  of  government.  He  thought  that 
the  number  of  members  admitted  to  the  lower  house  of 
the  National  Legislature  should  be  reduced.  A  crowd 
only  darkened  counsel  and  impeded  business.  A  mem- 
ber for  every  half-million  of  population  would  be 
ample.  The  powers  of  the  President,  should  be  in- 
creased. He  should  have  authority  to  put  down  re- 
bellion in  a  state,  without  waiting  for  the  request  of 
any  Governor ;  for  it  might  happen  that  the  Governor 
himself  would  be  the  leader  of  the  rebels.  It  is  need- 
less to  remark  how  later  events  showed  the  executive 
weakness  that  Smith  pointed  out — a  weakness  which 
cost  thousands  of  valuable  lives  and  millions  of 
treasure.  .  .  . 

"Born  in  the  lowest  ranks  of  poverty,  without  book- 
learning  and  with  the  homeliest  of  all  human  names, 
"  he  had  made  himself  at  the  age  of  thirty-nine  a  power 
upon  the  earth.  Of  the  multitudinous  family  of  Smith, 
none  had  so  won  human  hearts  and  shaped  human 
lives  as  this  Joseph.  His  influence,  whether  for  good 
or  evil,  is  potent  today,  and  the  end  is  not  yet. 

"I  have  endeavored  to  give  the  details  of  my  visit 
to  the  ' Mormon'  prophet  with  absolute  accuracy.  If 
the  reader  does  not  know  just  what  to  make  of  Joseph 
Smith,  I  can  not  help  him  out  of  the  difficulty.  I 
myself  stand  helpless  before  the  puzzle." 

I  thank  you,  gentlemen,  for  your  attention. 


CHURCH  WORKS 

Rays  of  Living  Light,   Penrbse... lOc 

Moi  mon  Doctrine,  Peiirose..., . lOc 

Brief  History  of  tl  e  Church,  Anderson 25c 

Strength  of  Mora?  >n  Position,  Whitney....,., lOc 

Voice  of  Warning,  Pratt lOc 

Apostasy,  Talmage  . .. lOc 

Story  and  Philosophy  of  Mormonism,  Talmage 35c 

Durant  of  Salt  Lake  City,  Rich................. 15c 

The  Great  Temple,  McAllister.,... 25c 

Salt  Lake  Tabernacle  and  Organ,  Young ..25c 

Book  of  Mormon,  cloth ,»_... 75c 

Doctrine  and  Covenants,  cloth 75c 

Articles  of  Faith,  Talmage..-.'......-.. $1.00- 

Restoration  of  the  Gospel,  Widtsoe 50c 

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